One of Pac-12's few female head coaches had success against Huskies
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| Liz Kritza was fired today after 7 seasons as Colorado head coach -Volleyblog Seattle file photo by Leslie Hamann |
It was a tough day for Colorado volleyball fans.
First, the Buffs had to watch as Arizona State was blown out of the NCAA tournament first round by Florida State. Colorado was snubbed Sunday by the NCAA selection committee, despite finishing 3 games ahead of the Sun Devils in the Pac-12 standings. Most observers believe CU would have put up a better fight against the Seminoles than ASU could muster.
Soon after ASU's loss, Colorado athletic director Rick George met with the Buffaloes volleyball team to report that he had fired head coach Liz Kritza. In a CU press release, George said "a determination has been made that we need to go in a different direction from a leadership standpoint." He cited "differences that have caused us to make a change in the program at this time.”
In seven seasons, Kritza was 90-125 in Boulder. If the Buffs had not been slighted, this would have been their third straight year in the NCAA Tournament. This season, Colorado was 19-14, including wins against Stanford, Florida State, and Oregon. Last season, the Buffs were 20-13 last season, a high-water mark after Colorado finished 1-21 in its first season as part of the Pac-12.
In both 2013 and 2014, Colorado defeated Washington in Boulder. In each season, it was one of only two regular-season losses for the Huskies. Thanks to the Pac-12's unfortunate unbalanced schedule, UW did not travel to Boulder this season.
Kritza's departure leaves just 2 women head coaches in the Pac-12: Washington State's Jen Greeny and Utah's Beth Launiere. A man, associate head coach J.T Wenger, will serve as interim coach while Colorado forms a search committee to replace Kritza.
Kritza is a thoughtful commentator on the challenges facing women in the college volleyball profession. We've always found her to be a straight talker on a host of issues. She should be in demand whenever positions in top programs become available.
Nice article, but this is shameful news. This is very sad for women and this sport. Please let us know the real reason a strong, extremely talented and effective coach could be summarily dismissed! SoCalVBfanatic
ReplyDeleteI wonder how much of this is interelated with being abused by the selection committee.
ReplyDeleteI have recent information from a reliable source that Jim had asked Leslie first about taking over for him. When she indicated she wasn't interested, he then asked Keegan. Don't recall reading about this fact when the announcements were made in January and don't think it would be fair to speculate/assume that Leslie was bypassed in an old boy-to-new boy hand-off.
ReplyDeleteFirst off, while Jim could make recommendations, he had no say in who would take his place. Leslie was definetly not bypassed. She has had previous head coachimg opportunities and declined them. When Jim left, she was busy with three kids under five, was very happy to be the associate head coach and supported Keegan for the job. Keegan's respect for Tui is so high that he made it clear he would not apply if she was at all interested.
DeleteWord. Leslie's so whoopass, as a technique coach, as a known badass player....you *know* husky gals look at tape of their coach, in their uniform, being a BEAST on their court. And then they try to play with Tui's 'tude.
DeleteThanks for making clear what happened in the transition. Needed to be said, again.
What has impressed me, as a non-expert, is I notice on a lot of teams, including UW under McLaughlin, that even the best players get into periods where they lose focus and/or cohesion and get into slumps. Sometimes you see this as inability to finish a match, or sometimes it lasts over several matches. Under Cook and Gabriel this doesn't seem to have happened - I'm so impressed at how they keep their intensity all the way to the end of every match. I'm sure the players deserve a lot of credit but the coaches seem to have mastered the psychology. None of the players are Krista Vansant and yet the coaches have weaved them - every player on the entire team - into a seamless force with no weaknesses.
DeleteCook and Gabriel famously presented themselves as a package deal and it sure looks like it was a great deal.
But regarding Kritza, now I wonder if the same is in store for Stanford's coach. An awful lot of talent seems to have been squandered.
Agree with you to the extent that Keegan has proven himself to be an offensive coaching genius. Krista hit .246 and .264 in her first two years. With Keegan’s arrival, she hit .320 in her last two years. The two replacements this year for Krista and Kaleigh (AVCA All-Americans) are Courtney (.330) and Carley (.352) who rode the bench last year (.248 on 202 TA and .235 on 17 TA respectively) have stepped up spectacularly. Sure, both were top 20 talent (Courtney was ranked #19 and Carley #18) coming in but Keegan deserves a lot of credit for helping them realize their potential. If Jim hadn’t left, there is no doubt that Stanford and other top programs would want to poach Keegan to be their assistant/associate coach.
DeleteUnfortunately, coaching is only 50% of a head coach’s duties. The other half is recruiting. So far, Keegan hasn’t gotten it done. If he can’t attract top 50 talent to the program, it may not matter how good technically he and Leslie are. The Oregon Ducks have out-recruited the Huskies by a mile these past two years and, if Keegan can’t recruit a great class next year, the UW will likely fall behind its rival and risk the same fate as its football program vis-à-vis the Oregon Ducks in the past decade. Jack’s headline, referring to the last UW-OR match, won’t be: “It was an ugly volleyball match, but Washington will take it.” It will just be plain ugly.
I agree that recruiting is very important. I also agree that the 2016 recruiting class may not, at least on paper, be as distinguished as 2011-2014. As the recruiting process takes several years to accomplish, the 2016 (and to some extent 2017) class was in Jim's hands, not Keegan. In addition, several highly rated recruits (e.g., Lexi Sun, Ronika Stone and Briana Holman) did show interest but decided to commit elsewhere when Jim left for Notre Dame. Keegan has landed a verbal from a great MB for 2017. The 2018 class will be all Keegan's and an important class for the future of Washington volleyball.
DeleteMost high level volleyball players now commit to a college several years before they graduate high school. The players in this incoming class, and most likely the next, were recruited, evaluated, and offered a scholarship by Jim. After that, its on Keegan.
DeleteJim is responsible for the recruiting pickle the Huskies are in by thinking of leaving and actually leaving (Classes 2015 and 2016). With the departure of its seniors, the team's current roster is devoid of any middles or defensive specialists and its sole recruit-setter has to double as an OH when Carly was lost to an ankle injury.
DeleteI am also calling out Scott Woodward, the AD, for his role in this situation. As just a fan who attends games, I can only speculate whether Jim left solely for the reasons that were made public and whether his enormous success with the program had been properly honored and compensated by the Administration. I also wonder what measures, if any, Scott took to keep him.
Keegan may have applied for the job but it was Scott’s decision to appoint him over bringing in a name coach. With Keegan’s dearth of experience, I doubt he would have left if he were passed over. Keegan has proven to us that he can coach. Now, he has to prove that he can recruit and that Scott made the right decision in giving him the head coaching job.
If the Ducks come into Alaska Airlines Arena over the next decade and kick our butts the way they have been doing in football, I will be one mighty unhappy fan.
One of Kritza's assistants was suspended in October and did not return to the team. From the AD's comments about leadership, it would appear that she had been held accountable for not having been on top of the situation that led to his departure. Did she deserve to take a bullet for this guy's actions? No one seems to know.
ReplyDeleteLIz Kritza made a decision to support her assistant and that has ultimately led to her dismissal. Once all the information comes out about what really happened people will be wondering why this did not take place sooner. Cu's AD made the right call in removing her from the coaching position.
DeleteOTT - Who can we complain to about the continued lack of television coverage of our Pac-12 teams in the NCAA's? We can watch university streaming but is hardly a good experience. Pac-12 network is showing some re-runs of past season vball games while the tourney is on. Is this an NCAA licensing thing? There are a 1/2 dozen early season basketball games on but nothing on the tourney other than the Big 10 network which does give the ladies some respect. Sick of this.
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